Evers: DNR completes Pelican River Forest easement purchase

Gov. Tony Evers used his State of the State address last week to announce that he had completed the largest land conservation easement purchase in Wisconsin history, despite opposition not only from Republicans in the legislature but from impacted counties and towns.

Evers announced the approval of the conservation easement purchase in the Pelican River Forest. The purchase will cover 54,898 acres of the forest, bringing the total to more than 67,000 acres that will be forever off limits to economic development.

The purchase would originally have consumed some 80 percent of the town of Monico, though about 1,200 acres were later carved out to allow for development along roadway corridors. 

At his State of the State address, Evers was ecstatic, saying the purchase would ensure that the forest will remain open to the public in perpetuity for outdoor recreation activities such as fishing, hunting, skiing, trapping, and hiking.

“Conserving and protecting our natural resources and land continues to be a top priority for my administration,” Evers said. “I’m also excited to announce tonight I’m approving the largest forest conservation effort in state history. In partnership with the Biden administration and the Conservation Fund, we’ve approved the conservation easement for the Pelican River Forest’s remaining acres to protect the forest for generations of future Wisconsinites to use and enjoy. This is a big deal, folks.”

Evers said the conservation easement will be funded in part by an $11 million grant from the U.S. Forest Service Forest Legacy Program (FLP). That grant required a state match of $4 million, with the money coming through the state’s Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program.

However, last April Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee blocked the Stewardship funding primarily because of local opposition. Last week, advocates said the Conservation Fund had raised $4.5 million to pick up the state’s portion of the tab.

Clint Miller, the central Midwest regional director at The Conservation Fund, called it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to protect nearly 70,000 acres of forestland to provide greater access to nature, strengthen local economies, and enhance climate resiliency.

“The Conservation Fund and its partners are very grateful to the Richard King Mellon Foundation for their bridge financing loan and for the individual, foundation, and corporate support that helped provide a match for federal Forest Legacy Program funds—including a $600,000 lead grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation through Walmart’s Acres for America Program,” Miller said. “Because so many worked so tirelessly to get this project done, Pelican River Forest will stand tall for generations to come.”

Local opposition

In his State of the State address, Evers cited broad support from local governments for the project, as well as from Native nations, outdoor advocacy groups, local businesses, and thousands of individual Wisconsinites.

However, Evers did not acknowledge local opposition to the project, which has festered for months. In December, in fact, Oneida County board chairman and Sugar Camp town chairman Scott Holewinski and Monico town chairman and Oneida County supervisor Robert Briggs sent a letter to Robert Lueckel, a deputy regional forester for the USDA Forest Service, seeking a seat at the table over the ongoing proposal.

Cindy Gretzinger, the Forest County board chairwoman, and William Chaney, a Forest County supervisor in Crandon, sent a similar letter, as did Langlade County board chairman Ben Pierce and multiple Langlade County board members.

The letters pointed out that federal law requires coordination with local governments over such purchases. Coordination advocates have for years maintained that coordination is a tool by which local units of government can compel federal and state agencies to work integrally with local authorities when planning land-use projects.

The officials emphasized that, in June, the USDA Forest Service announced that it had authorized an $11 million grant to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for the project. 

“This project does not have the consent or matching grant commitment from the state, nor has it been coordinated with the counties and municipalities that have planning jurisdiction over the project area,” the letters stated.

As such, the officials wrote, the counties of Oneida, Langlade, and Forest, as well as the municipalities within those counties, were requesting that the grant funds be withheld until all parties could meet and work through what they called planning conflicts the project would create within their respective jurisdictions.

The officials also pointed to a lack of state legislative support.

“On April 18, 2023, the state Joint Finance Committee met in executive session and denied approval of the grant,” Holewinski and Briggs and the officials wrote. “To date, the project does not have the state legislature’s consent or financial commitment approving the matching grant for the conservation easement.”

Holewinski and the other officials wrote that they were puzzled why the Forest Service had not reached out to the counties.

“Considering that the federal CFAA (Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act ) requires Forest Legacy Program projects to be developed in cooperation with the state’s political subdivisions, such as a county, and that the projects are to be coordinated with local governments, it is unclear why neither your agency nor the WDNR attempted to work with the impacted counties to determine whether the Pelican River Forest Project was consistent with the authorized comprehensive plans,” the letter states.

Land uses in local jurisdictions must be properly balanced to ensure that counties and municipalities can efficiently support the needs of communities, ensure robust local economies, and guide proper stewardship of resources, including forests, Holewinski, Briggs and the other officials wrote.

“The comprehensive plans consider the needs of all landowners, whether they be private, local, state, or federal, and coordinate these appropriately for their short term uses, as well as future needs,” the letter states. “These plans are the only land use policies that ‘comprehensively’ incorporate all the planning requirements of local, state, and federal agencies, private land-use activities, and other functions such as infrastructure and utility requirements. All these needs must be considered in a manner that protects the health, safety and welfare of the citizens, which is the purpose for the comprehensive plan.”

It is imperative that every land-use project that occurs in each county be carried out in coordination with the county’s comprehensive plan, the officials asserted. 

“However, neither your agency nor the WDNR has done so, which creates numerous conflicts with our policies,” they wrote. “No attempt has been made to fully inform the counties on how the project may impact future utility infrastructure, timber production, emergency management access, or any of the other critical issues the counties and municipalities must oversee.”

On January 17, Lueckel responded, saying forestry officials were confident that their efforts at coordination were sufficient under the law and further asserting that the agency had to act because of congressional mandate.

“Furthermore, the Pelican River Forest Project is included in the FY23 Consolidated Appropriations Act,” Lueckel wrote. “The Forest Service has direction from Congress in Division G of the Joint Explanatory Statement to the FY23 Consolidated Appropriations Act that states in part: ‘Each department and agency funded in the Act is directed to follow the direction set forth in the Act and the accompanying statement.’”

In accordance with its agreement with the DNR and direction from Congress, Lueckel wrote, the Forest Service was required to make the project grant funds available. 

“The WDNR’s payment request was approved on January 11th in order to meet the agency’s plan to close on the transaction in late January,” he wrote.